Cropping question

[Dorrie H.]

If I'm not mistaken somewhere I either saw or heard a way to crop and image equally around all sides of an outline by holding down some key or combination thereof. Does anyone have the answer for me. I know I can eyeball it but the method I'm referring to was making all sides the same.

[Simenon]

Hi Dorrie - there may be another way to get this done, but you can create a centered Selection and then Crop to that Selection.

Make a Selection with any Selection tool you wish. Now with the Selection active press

Ctrl+C
Ctrl+D
Ctrl+V

A new layer will be inserted in the Layers pallet with the copy area centered. Ctrl click on the thumbnail of the new layer to restore the Selection area marching ants (important step).

Now drag the new layer to the trashcan (do not hold down any keys while doing this). You will now see your Selection exactly centered in your picture. Now go to the Image menu and select Crop. Your picture will be cropped to the centered Selection.

This takes longer to explain than it does to do once you get the hang of it. BTW I use PSE 4 but I assume this tactic works in other versions of Elements as well. If there is a shorter way to do this I am not aware of it.

~ Simenon

[Dorrie H.]

Simenon, Thank you for your suggestion. I'll give it a try. However I wish I could remember what/where I saw, about doing this. It seemed real simple at the time. Maybe I have it mixed up with something else. It might have been in using the selection tool and not the crop tool. This old brain isn't quite as good as it use to be. :)

[TonyW]

Not quite sure what you mean but if you just make a selection and then do an Image>Crop that should crop around the selection.

Tony

[vawitt]

Once you choose the Crop tool, you can set the options bar to be a specific size (if that's what you are after). Then drag the crop tool around your image and it will stay fixed on that size. Be sure to fill in the # of pixels to crop, as well as the vertical and horizontal dimensions.

The other way is to use the Crop tool to select the entire photo. Then hold down the ALT key as you drag one of the corners. This fixes the perspective, so the top/bottom, and left/right remain the same.

Hopefully one of these methods will work.

[Diana]

If I need to make a selection equi-distance from all edges, I turn on the Grid. That really helps.

Diana

[Davehagg]

Hi Dorrie - Not sure if this is what you're looking for but I set the crop tool to no restriction and drag out the size needed which comes out equal on all sides. Before letting up on the mouse hold down the space bar to position the crop where you want it. Hope this helps ... Dave

[Dorrie H.]

Thank you everyone.

Dave, That's what I have always done, but was looking for another way.

Dianna, That would work also, but I didn't want to deal with the grids.

Val, your "Other way" is just what I was looking for. Thanks so very much.

Everyone had good suggestions and I really do appreciate your responses. This has always been and still is the Greatest Forum for help and information.

Bless you all.